These last two years have seen Godwin's Law invoked so many times that we need to get a handle on this. So I am proposing a simple new rule:

Rule: If a policy being proposed was that policy held by the United States or Britain at the time they defeated Nazi Germany and literally Hitler, it cannot be referred to, in and of itself, as fascist.

(And yes, I know, the Soviets did most of the fighting on the Eastern front, but we don't need to emulate literally Stalin.)

​So, if someone wants to restrict immigration radically, like the United States did in 1924 and kept in place until 1965, it is not "literally Hitler" but instead "literally Coolidge."

I mean, just look at this chart, the United States took in more immigrants in real numbers, not per capita, for each decade between 1870 and 1920 than it did in total between 1924 and 1965!

​And what was the percentage of the population that was foreign born in England and Wales in 1931? Just shy of 2 percent.

And of course, back in the late 1930's and 1940's, businesses in the United States could legally choose not to serve someone of another race and states could even enact Jim Crow laws. And Britain had a Goddamn Empire for crying out loud!

Of course, just because Jim Crow and the British Empire weren't fascist doesn't mean they were good. No, they were bad. But not everything bad is fascist. Unfortunately, as George Orwell noted in 1946, at least for the Left, that "something bad" has basically become the definition of fascist, Nazi and of course, "literally Hitler."